The sound of hooves and voices drifted into Sweetie Belle’s sleep. She heard a thud and a pony yelling, followed by a grunt and the sound of hooves running away. A few moments later, she heard more yelling, this time in the distance, then silence as running hooves faded away. She considered waking up for a second, but decided against it, at least until she felt something.
“Uh, what- what is that?” Sweetie Belle asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes. She sniffed, starting, “Is that- did you wet the bed, Scootaloo?”
“No,” Scootaloo answered with a yawn. “I think Asher did, and now Aunt Holiday is probably helping her get cleaned up.”
“Oh. I guess that’s why she didn’t want to sleep in the bed with us earlier.”
“Yeah…” Scootaloo paused, rubbing her eyes, then continued, “I think she fell off the bed and hit her head, too.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Girls?” a voice asked as a mare entered the still dark room. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo answered, rubbing her eyes again. “Asher wet the bed, and I think she hit her head.”
“That's what Aunt Holiday told me. She's with her now taking her to the hospital.”
“Wait, really? Is she okay?”
“I think she’ll be okay, but we just want to make sure.”
“Oh, okay.”
There was a silence building as Lofty considered how to start what she wanted to say next. While she did know that it wasn't going to be permanent, she didn't know how this was going to work exactly yet. Still, though, she felt like she should mention it to her now so she wasn't caught off guard later.
“How would you feel, Scootaloo,” she started, “if Asher stayed with us for a little while?”
“Wait, really?” Scooatloo asked, her eyes widening. “Yes!”
“Now it’s not a guarantee, it’s just a possibility. Aunt Holiday and I will talk to you more about it tomorrow... or I guess today, seeing as it's almost waking up time as it is."
“Yay! Asher gets to stay in Ponyville!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle exclaimed excitedly at the same time.
“So just to be clear, we said that, while sleeping over at your house, she wet the bed, woke up confused and disoriented, and then fainted and hit her head falling on the ground?” Redheart asked. “Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Holiday answered.
“And you were in the room when this happened?”
“Yes I was.”
The nurse wrote down her words, squinting as she did so. “Where are her parents?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Cheerilee broke in, watching the conversation between them take place. “She claims they aren’t ponies, and from what one of my students told me, she was found lying on the ground just before sunrise yesterday.” She paused, then added, “Mayor Mare and I decided that it would be best for her to stay with Lofty and Holiday for the time being.”
The three of them were talking softly next to Asher as she lay in a hospital bed. It was early morning, the sun expected to be risen up in the sky in just a couple of hours, when Holiday brought the filly in. On the way over, she stopped by to get Cheerilee, who was normally awake at this time. From there, they headed over to Ponyville General, and were now talking to nurse Redheart about the filly.
“I see…” the nurse trailed off as she cast a glance at Asher. She was silent for a second as she wrote, then continued, “In any case, from what you’re telling me, it sounds like she fell over from exhaustion as soon as she woke up and hit her head that way.”
“Are you sure?” Holiday asked with concern. “What if it’s something else? She told me yesterday that she was feeling sick.”
“She told me the same thing during class, too,” Cheerilee added. “She walked weirdly, almost with a limp, and honestly seemed confused and anxious of everything around her. I- I’m honestly concerned she doesn’t even know how to read. I think she might have lied about her name, too. She said it was Asher, but it sounded to me like she was going to say something different.”
Redheart did think it was a bit peculiar what they were saying, but decided not to comment on it. "I understand," she told them. "When she wakes up, I’ll make sure to speak to her about all of that. I’ll be back in a few minutes to check more on her.”
Bright lights and the sound of voices forced me awake.
I could feel the sensation of someone’s hand in my hair as I cracked an eye open. Bright lights and white walls filled my vision, completely unlike the home I was used to. There was a dresser and a computer monitor and a curtain covered in flowers that was meant to separate different areas of the place I was in. It was a very bizarre sight, and I couldn’t immediately tell where I was.
“Oh, my head hurts,” I thought as I looked down at my silver-coated hooves. “Was I in an accident? I don’t remember getting hurt…”
I must have made a noise, a sound of discomfort, because the person whose hand was in my hair said something to me.
“Hey, it’s okay,” a woman whispered in a voice I recognized, but couldn’t immediately place. “It’s okay,” she said. “Just stay still. You’re gonna be okay.”
I continued to stare at my appendages, trying to understand what I was looking at. They seemed incredibly familiar and out of place at the same time, and for a second I couldn’t quite figure out why. They seemed normal, normal enough for hooves anyway, and had a nice bright color that I quite liked.
“Wait, hooves?” I finally realized. “Why do I have hooves? What is going on?”
I turned my head to look up and saw two horses that I knew I recognized, one with a red-tinted coat and hair that reminded me of fire, the other with a pinkish white mane and a dark magenta colored coat. The sight of them threw me completely off, and I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing.
“Miss Holiday and Miss Cheerilee?” I thought. “What are they doing here? What is going on?”
All of a sudden, it clicked. This was the dream I had. The dream that turned out to be real. I remembered the entire previous day. My appearance, meeting those two girls, the school day, going to sleep… I was supposed to wake up at home. This was supposed to have been over. And yet I was still here.
“What am I still doing here?” I fearfully thought to myself. “I’m not supposed to be here. God, why is this happening to me? What is going on?”
I tried my very best not to start freaking out right then, but I could already feel my muscles tense up and my breathing become faster. For the second or third time in less than a day, I could feel tears form as my teeth chattered at the prospect of being here and what it all meant, but I tried to force myself to stay calm. However, I knew I wasn’t doing a very good job by the way Holiday talked to me.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she told me, Cheerilee gazing sympathetically at me as Holiday wrapped me in a hug. “The nurse is going to be back here really soon. I promise.”
“I’m not supposed to be here…” I whispered shakily, looking back down at my hooves tearfully. “I need to go home…”
I watched the silver legs in front of me shake as my breathing continued to get faster. I could feel my heart beating quicker and harder and my chest starting to hurt as I looked around the small area, hoping something would prove that I wasn't actually here. Suddenly though, my body was turned so that I was facing someone.
“Look at me, Asher,” Cheerilee asserted forcefully as she stared me in the eye. She put a hoof on one of mine and continued, “It’s going to be okay. I know you don’t feel okay right now, but you’re going to be okay.”
“I- I…” I closed my eyes and put a hoof on my chest. “Oh, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”
“I’ll go get the nurse,” Holiday said, getting up as Cheerilee continued to stare into my eyes, putting a hoof in my hair.
“I want you to take some slow, deep breaths, okay?” the teacher told me, much softer this time. I tried to follow her directions, but it was difficult to fight the panicky feeling welling up inside me. Nevertheless, I found myself very, very slowly started to calm down as I felt her hoof stroke my mane in a relaxing sort of motion. It seemed like she knew what she was doing, which wasn't that surprising to me, seeing as she was a school teacher.
"I know you might be scared right now, but you're going to be okay."
I absolutely hated this feeling I had, this feeling that I was trapped here no matter what. I didn’t want to be this… animal! I was the wrong age, the wrong sex, the wrong species, and in the wrong world, and it absolutely terrified me. However, before I could start to get worked up again, I watched as someone else entered the room.
“Look who’s awake!” Redheart said with a smile as she entered. She immediately saw the look on the filly’s face as she did so, and approached softly, Holiday following behind her. “How are you feeling?” the mare asked.
The silver-coated filly sniffed. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she got out. She knew it was childlike, but at that point, she couldn’t help it. She felt like everything around her was crumbling, and she was just barely hanging on.
“I want to go home,” she continued.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Redheart replied sympathetically. “I promise we’ll try to get you home. But first, I’d like to give you a checkup and talk to you privately. Is that okay?”
“I guess…” she answered quietly, Cheerilee and Holiday taking this as their cue to exit the curtained off area.
“Is it okay if I just started by asking what your name is?”
“A-a-ashley…” the filly sniffed out, then realized what she said and quickly tried to take it back. “I mean, I’m sorry. It’s- it’s Asher.”
“Hey, I think Ashley is a very nice name,” she told her, almost whispering as she used a hoof to move some hair from in front of the filly’s eyes. “Is it okay if I called you that?” she asked.
“I- I don't… I… I guess,” she got out, keeping herself composed enough to avoid crying.
“Can I ask what your parents' names are, Ashley?”
“Garnet and Opal…”
“Garnet and Opal,” Redheart repeated as she wrote the names down. “How old are you, Ashley?”
She didn’t immediately answer, instead taking a second to take a deep breath as she felt herself becoming anxious. She knew exactly what would happen when she answered her question. She knew it would seem utterly ridiculous to the nurse, and knew that if she was on the other side, it would seem that way to her, too.
“You’re not going to believe me…” she said quietly.
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
The filly paused for a moment, then sniffed and said, “Because I’m almost twenty-five…”
“Oh, uh, okay…” the nurse trailed off, unsure how to react. “That’s, uh…”
“You don’t believe me…”
“Hey, now,” she tried to tell her. “I never said I don’t believe you-”
“But I know you don't because this isn’t supposed to be happening to me,” the filly got out. “All of this, it’s… it’s not supposed to be happening to me. I’m not supposed to be here… Oh, Lord, why are you letting this happen to me? This shouldn’t be happening!”
“Hey, hey now,” Redheart started as she watched the filly start go get herself worked up. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not going to be okay…” she gasped. “This shouldn’t be happening…”
“It’s going to be okay,” the mare asserted, putting a hoof around her and rubbing her shoulder. “You’re going to be okay, Ashley.”
“Please don’t call me that,” Asher choked out, once again fighting back tears. “I really don’t want to be called that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to be sorry. I’ll call you Asher if that’s what you want.”
Asher used her hooves to wipe her eyes. “I’m too old to be acting like this. I’m sorry."
“You don’t need to be sorry. I should be sorry for making you uncomfortable.”
Asher sniffed. “I don’t normally get upset by the name Ashley,” she said. "It’s just… it’s just... everything! So much of everything right now!”
"I promise, it's going to be okay," she said as she leaned down to look at her head. “Why don't we start that check-up now, hmm? Do you hear ringing in your ears or see double?”
“No…”
“That’s good. Do you feel light headed or nauseous at all?” The filly shook her head, immediately regretting it as she did so. “I don't think you're going to want to shake your head right now, Ashley- I mean, Asher. Do you remember what happened when you woke up?”
“This morning or yesterday?” Asher asked, her voice cracking a bit.
“Why don’t we start with this morning, when you were in Miss Holiday’s house.”
The filly blushed slightly, saying, “I woke up because I peed, then I passed out again and hit my head.”
“Oh, that must’ve hurt. Were you scared?”
I knew exactly where this was going, and I wanted to put an end to it before it began. I closed my eyes and took a few breaths before answering her.
“I was afraid because I’m not supposed to be here. I thought I would be back home in my normal body when I woke up, and I wasn’t, and… and I want to go home.”
I couldn’t help but add that to the end. I’d never been homesick before, but at that moment, I was feeling an absolutely soul-crushing wave of homesickness, one that made me just want to ball up and cry, and extreme anxiety at the thought that I would be trapped here forever.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the nurse told me sympathetically. “I promise, we’ll do everything we can to get you home. But can I ask what you mean when you say you thought you would be back in your “normal body”?
“I mean I’m not a pony,” I told her, almost as a matter of fact.
“You’re not a pony?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I shook my head, and despite the fact that I knew she didn’t believe me, she continued on. “That’s interesting, because you sure look like a pony to me."
"I'm not," I managed to say in a small voice.
She was silent for a second, probably debating whether or not I was lying, crazy, or had a concussion, before she continued. "Well, in any case, it looks like you hit your head really hard when you fell, hard enough to leave a bruise… do you know when your last checkup was, Asher?”
“No,” I told her honestly.
“Well, in that case, I think we’ll give you a full checkup. Can you open your mouth for me, please?”